A SCHOOLGIRL has been kept in hospital for a week after being savagely attacked by a dog.

Kelly Camilleri, 12, has had operations on horrific leg injuries which will leave her scarred for life.

She was playing football outside her grandmother's house in Moss Side when the pit bull terrier charged at her and grabbed her by the left leg.

Kelly has had a skin graft to cover a huge wound behind her knee.

Now her family has launched a hunt to trace the owner of the mystery "devil dog" before it attacks someone else.

Kelly was playing after school when the dog ran from a nearby gate and clamped its jaws on her.

She told how a man came and tried to wrestle the dog away saying `Don't scream, don't scream'.When Kelly's grandmother Helen heard the noise she ran outside to see her lying on the ground and the man pulling the dog away.

Helen, of Bold Street, said: "I got her inside and she was crying saying `It hurts nanny, it hurts'. I used scissors to cut her trousers back and bits of flesh and skin were falling away in my hand. She had a big hole behind her knee. I called her mum and an ambulance and held a tea towel on the hole.

"I tried to keep her calm but she was in shock."

Kelly was taken by ambulance to Manchester Royal Infirmary and then transferred to Booth Hall Children's Hospital, where she went into theatre.

Three days later, she went back into surgery so a skin graft could be taken from the top of her leg to cover the hole. A plaster cast was also fitted.

Helen said: "Kelly hasn't said very much about it but said the dog came out of a gate and made straight for her.

"I don't know whose dog it is but a lad came to my house and asked how Kelly was. I said she would be scarred for life and has a terrible leg injury then he said it wasn't his dog anyway.

"I want that dog found and put down. It could have killed my granddaughter. She is going to be scarred for life."

Kelly, a Manchester United fan, lives with her grandmother in Bold Street.